Cynic newspapers disappear from University of Vermont

Apr. 22, 2012

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It could be called “the case of the missing Cynics,” but as mysteries go, it’s a bit squishy.

April 16, editors of the Vemont Cynic — the University of Vermont’s free-of-charge weekly student newspaper — noticed that their latest issue could not be found on the newsstands in the Davis Center. Then they learned the Cynic was not in the rack at the Bailey/Howe Library, either.

This raised the question of whether the newspapers had been removed en masse for some reason — perhaps because the front page highlighted campus crime and student malfeasance.

No one could be sure how many papers were missing, though, because four days had passed since the Thursday publication. Normally the paper is plentifully available for the week after it comes out.

Chris Evans, the newspaper’s adviser, noticed the stands in the Davis Center were empty that Monday morning, and he assumed distribution was late. He called the editor, Brent Summers, who suspected a different problem. Summers wondered if the Cynic was removed by someone who didn’t like what was in it.

Corrie Roe, managing editor, found a small stack of papers in the trash of a bathroom in the Davis Center.

The empty racks were enough to prompt an indignant editorial in the next edition that came out Thursday, noting the “mysteriously missing copies” and ruing a “troubling” attempt to squelch campus news. Next to the editorial was a reprint of the previous week’s front page “someone did not want you to see.” That front page featured four stories on student misdeeds beneath an overline that read “Caution Caution Caution.”

If papers were removed from newsstands, they were removed selectively. A spot check on campus Tuesday morning found empty Cynic racks in the Waterman Building, in the library and Davis Center, but plentiful stacks of newspapers were available in the School of Business Administration, Living and Learning Center, and the two showpiece residence halls on University Heights.

University police were not inclined to investigate missing Cynics.

“It’s my understanding that there were some issues (approx 50) found in a dumpster,” Chief Lianne Tuomey said in an email last week. “There are papers all over campus, and not all appeared to be missing from the Davis Center let alone around campus. With those details Police Services will not be doing anything about papers found in a Dumpster.”

Commenting for the UVM administration, spokesman Enrique Corredera said: “We have not been able to establish that copies of the Cynic were inappropriately removed. We are quite certain that no university officials had any involvement if that is indeed what happened.”

Summers said Cynic staffers have been given access to tapes from a Davis Center surveillance camera and will be reviewing them over the next few days.

Pat Brown, director of student life, said that if papers were removed, it’s hardly the first time. It’s happened “multiple times” over the years, he said.

After all, he said, the papers are free and publicly available. “There’s no law that says you can’t take more than one.”

He remembered one time, in the early ’80s, when the Cynic’s staffers themselves went out and retrieved all the papers in the racks — after they discovered that a back-page beer ad had been covertly defaced during the production process.

By Friday afternoon, a day after publication, everything was back to normal. Piles of the April 19 Cynic were in their racks at the Davis Center, the library and the Waterman Building, as usual.